


Down at the NAAFI

by Heliopause



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: Bad Puns, Family, Gen, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-06
Updated: 2013-10-06
Packaged: 2017-12-28 13:56:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/992750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Heliopause/pseuds/Heliopause
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>During the Second World War, the Navy, Army and Air Force Institutes ran over seven thousand canteens in Britain and abroad, including in active theatres of war, providing amongst other things a kind of clubrooms for millions of servicemen and women far from the comforts of home.<br/>In one NAAFI, in 1942, two Pevensies were to meet an iconic figure.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Down at the NAAFI

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Nfe_gremlin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nfe_gremlin/gifts).



_Soo-zie, how-I-love-ya, how-I-love-ya,_  
 _down at the NAAFI!_  
 _I'd give the world!_  
 _to!_  
 _eat there once more!_  
 _Oh, take me to that NAAFI store!_

The raucous, cheerful, ragged chorus broke off into a confusion of whistles and catcalling.

"What the... ?" Peter leapt up to peer out of the window. He was not long back from the Observer Corps training camp, and had expected to find home a haven of quiet.

Lucy laughed.

"It's Susan's cheer squad... her personal guard of honour. You can take the Queen out of Narnia, but she'll still have a guard of honour!" 

Then, relenting in response to his bemused look of enquiry: "She's been volunteering to help out at the NAAFI all holidays, ever since you left for camp. She says it's the servicewomen and men who are most alone and farthest from home who end up there, and the food's boring and the place is ... well, she's going to _make sure it changes_."

It wasn't exactly an imitation, but something of Susan's own incisive energy came through in the tone or the expression, and Peter laughed.

"She would that! And these are chaps who've seen her home?"

"Yes, and..."

The door opened, and Susan was in the doorway, glowing from her walk home in the night air, dark hair coiled high, her full lips a brilliant scarlet, her delicate eyebrows raised for an instant in surprise—and then she was across the room and hugging her brother. 

"Peter! Oh, good to see you again!"

"And good to see you! Though... wow! make-up! you look about twenty, with that stuff on! Spectacular, but... older than you've looked lately, anyway!"

"Yes, well.. that's the idea," she grimaced. "Looking older lets them let their hair down a bit, relax, enjoy the banter and not feel they have to protect my child's ears every single moment! If I went there looking fourteen, it'd be all 'shut up, the kid'll hear'. And you know how people really need to let off steam sometimes..."

"Yep." He grimaced in return, and a look of sad comprehension flashed between them. 

All three were quiet for a moment, then seemed to recognise, simultaneously, the need to move on from thoughts of battles past, and of lost comrades.

"Ask her what that lipstick style's called," Lucy suggested, with a hint of a smile.

"What?" he asked, cautiously.

"It's called...," Susan fixed him with a don't-you-dare-laugh eye, "It's called _'Hunter's Bow'_."

But he did dare laugh after all. She cuffed him lightly and laughed a little herself.

"You can pay for that in hard labour! Why not come down with me tomorrow? The uniform will get you in, and one more pair of hands..."

"What, and face the entire Susan's Own Cheer Squad?"

Both his sisters laughed at that, and Susan said, "I meant at lunchtime. It's quieter then, and we can get a start on cooking for the evening."

"Time with you is time well spent! I'll be there!"

***

The NAAFI Hall at first sight was as grim as Lucy had suggested, but almost as soon as they had arrived a group of uniformed men poured into the Hall after them, and sprang into action, cleaning (including the high, awkward windows), straightening tables, spreading spotless white cloths and even putting vases of flowers about. Peter looked around, startled.

"What... it's nothing like the NAAFI at base! Is this your influence? Lucy said you were going to .."

"Yes, I was! But no, this isn't me—not my work, I mean."

"Marg!" she called across the Hall, to a figure fluttering nervously, on the other side of a servery hatch, "What's going on?"

"There's a film unit coming! Oh, Susie!"

Another woman appeared beside the first.

"Good that at least one other sensible person is here! She's all in a twitter, love."

"We all are!" protested the woman called Marg. "You are, too, Becca!"

Brother and sister exchanged glances, and walked across to the kitchen. Inside several women in the NAAFI uniform were milling about, and a babble of agitated talk filled the air.

"Do I look all right? It must be somebody important... "

"Thank heavens you're here, Susie... Is this your brother?"

"Yes, this is Peter, come to give us a hand. Peter, this is Margaret. And this is Rebecca."

"Pleased, I'm sure," said Rebecca. "You've come on a fine day! They say we've got to serve a typical lunch, Susie, but they're keeping the top table for Somebody. They're not saying who."

"Oh, Susie, it could be the Queen! Or the King! I'll just die if I have to meet them!" 

"Kings and Queens are just people like us, Marg, however much the country depends on them in wartime. And you can always just stay back here."

"And miss a chance like that? But a film unit—it's got to mean somebody really important! I'll just die!"

"Trust me, Marg, the bigger the person, the easier they'll make it for you. So—what's my job today, Becca?"

"Soup's on... Marg's been making the gravy. That blackberry fool you made is in the cool-room. Could you get cracking on the bread-and-butter, love?"

"Sure thing!" 

And Susan moved quickly to the table by the servery hatch, and pulled a loaf from the bread-basket.

"If it's Somebody—meaning some big gun—it'll be interesting to see how they react to a typical NAAFI lunch." Peter muttered.

Susan was cutting bread with energy and precision. She frowned.

"Ours aren't too bad; I've been edging in a few of our foraging techniques. Start slapping some marge on these, will you? The food's good, and it's nourishing, even if it's not what everyone's used to. Anyway... it's wartime food, and that's that."

"A big gun would probably have access to home gardens, maybe even a home cellar," Peter pointed out.

"Good! Then I will make sure that we get... " 

A head was suddenly thrust through the servery hatch into the kitchen.

"Oooh, lovely! A pretty face! Just what we want. Stop right there!" 

Next minute a photographer had burst into the kitchen, tugging open the hood of his camera as he came; immediately behind him was an eager-faced woman with a large notebook, and a tall, thin man who began to prowl the kitchen, checking in cupboards

"Right! now, we want you over here..." The photographer grabbed Susan's arm, and began to tug at her.

He did not even see the smooth, calm movement which saw him lying next instant, flat and astonished, on the kitchen floor. 

"You would be wiser _not_ to grab at my sister," Peter observed, laconically, looking down at him.

"Sister? Brilliant!" The photographer bounced up, undamaged and unabashed. "Macbride! We've got a brother-sister pair."

The woman with the notebook darted across. "Oh, lovely, lovely! _'Brother and sister meet at the NAAFI.'_ Get the shot, Perkins! _'Side by side, through the shifting tides of war...'_ Observer Corps, hey? Underage, but keen to serve however you can till you're old enough?"

"Yes," Peter replied, warily. Susan, he noticed, was quite unfazed, intercutting swift poses for Perkins with stacking the bread-and-marge ready for the tables.

"Big family? All in uniform? Anybody dead?" the journalist asked, hopefully.

"No," said Peter, more than a little flabbergasted.

"Ah... pity... pity... _Orphans fight on; 'We won't let Daddy die in vain,' they say'._ Be a great line... never mind, can't be helped."

Peter cast an appalled glance at Susan. She smiled slightly, and murmured almost inaudibly, "Prattlecheek."

He had a quick flash of remembrance of the little, darting Squirrel, who had been so eager to be first with the news, and to make all the news as dramatic as possible, after the Freeing of Beaversdam. The memory helped; he was turning more cheerfully to deal with the journalist when sounds of action in the main Hall took all attention that way.

There was a stir at the door. More photographers, running backwards, including the film-unit, lugging the cumbersome tools of their trade. It was undoubtedly the Somebody, and the journalist and photographer left, precipitately. The thin man who had been checking cupboards—security, Peter assessed—nodded, and took up a station at the kitchen door.

Evidently Security decided who was to be allowed to meet the Somebody. Or perhaps the photographer had influence, after all, because both Peter and Susan found themselves tapped, along with Rebecca and Marg, to be the four-person team who actually were to serve the table for... Somebody.

For, as it turned out, the Honorary Air Commodore of the Surrey Squadron. 

The Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports. 

The Minister of Defence, the Prime Minister—for, in short, Winston Spencer Churchill.

Peter looked him over, closely. This was a man whose importance to Britain should not be underestimated. He was not, after all, so very big, but it was easy to see why people thought he was; he carried within himself, in his mind and his spirit, the solidity of a mountain and the energy of a meteor. A fighter rather than a nation-builder—the High King noted the pugnacious set of his chin, and saw that there would be conflict wherever this man turned—and perhaps somewhat hampered in analysis by the prejudices of his class—he was sharply dismissive of the film crew, motioning them to the other end of the Hall—but a useful man, a valuable man to be holding the position he held. Peter was glad to have seen him, and glad that Britain had use of him. He exchanged a glance with Susan; her assessment, he thought, was much the same as his own.

And now the great man was seated, and Becca was carrying the first course to the table. She and Marg, as being the two in NAAFI uniform, had been given the task of actually serving the food, with Susan and Peter in support, behind.

The soup was nettle and chestnut; its savoury fragrance drifted past, bringing memories of the early hard years in post-Winter Narnia.

"Your inspiration?" he murmured. 

"It's silly to let good food go to waste when there's rationing," his sister said, under her breath, adding in explanation. "We dried the nettles months back."

"He's lapping it up." They watched in silence as the Prime Minister ate with relish. 

"Odd," Peter observed. "Odd to be so close, and not... This is probably as close as we're going to get to command, in this war, Su. Strange to be so much on the outer of things."

"The inner and the outer aren't nearly so far apart as you think. You of all people should know that appearances can deceive."

"True—and we're on duty again, I think."

The soup seemed to have gone down well. Margaret was given the honour of serving the main course—a new recipe, developed just last year and named in honour of a new Ally. 

It was not graciously received.

"What the dickens is this thing?"

Marg smiled nervously. "It's a special wartime dish, Sir. I...ah..."

"What?" Churchill barked, and Marg looked terrified.

Susan was at Margaret's side in an instant; she spoke quietly to her workmate, hoping to remain unnoticed.

"It's called Russian Sausage. The middle is wrapped in a mustard-green inside an egg, Marg."

"What? What... what?" The Prime Minister had looked up sharply, as if trying to pin down some elusive memory. "Something not quite right there. Still, with enough gravy it might be all right."

"Gravy..." Marg, still flustered, looked around, and Peter, anxious to help, seized the huge tureen from the servery. There didn't seem to be anything smaller, and no gravy-spoon at all. He rushed it over to the table, then stopped abruptly, which—was a mistake. 

The High King stopped, and the tureen stopped, but the gravy kept its rapid forward trajectory towards the Prime Minister, and sloshed, most copiously, across the Prime Ministerial trousers. 

For an instant the whole Hall seemed frozen in time. There was an utter silence, and then Susan and Becca were both on the scene, Susan with a large white teatowel, which she damped quickly from the water-jug, and Becca removing the well-gravied table-cloth; Margaret joined Susan, dabbing at the stains with a handkerchief, while apologising profusely.

Peter also apologised, receiving only a curt nod in reply, and then took himself and the tureen (since the Russian Sausage had also been well covered in gravy in the mishap) back to stand inconspicuously by the servery hatch, just as Rebecca emerged again, carrying a clean cloth. In short order all above the table was as it had been, even to a new vase of flowers.

Churchill, however, continued grumbling after the mess had been cleaned up, when only Susan and Marg remained. He spoke as if to himself, but clearly intending his words to be heard widely, and taken as a rebuke.

"Pretty poor show. If a _Prime Minister and Minister of Defence_ can't get a decent meal in a NAAFI, I don't know what chance the poor servicewomen and men..." 

Margaret was wilting, visibly, under the attack. Behind, in the kitchen, there were audible exclamations of distress; next to him, Peter saw that even stalwart Rebecca was apparently quite shaken by the gravy mishap. He was wondering whether he should intervene, when he saw Susan step one pace closer to Churchill's chair. Her voice was low, but her brother was well used to distinguish those tones, in greater crises than spilt gravy.

"You may be surprised, Prime Minister, but to _us_ , every single serviceman and servicewoman in the fight against fascism is a hero, and is given our total attention and support. And, if I may counsel you, a true leader never, _ever_ , imagines that the 'big guns' are one _ounce_ more important than the countless thousands who face the fire, or work the steel, or stand in support behind. 

"And furthermore... this lunch mightn't be what you have been used to at Marlborough House, but the women here have given..." she stopped and let her blazing eyes say all that she felt. 

He looked at her, and spoke truculently, to cover, Peter thought, some slight sense of shame.

"All very well. Not _your_ trousers which have been ruined by sloppy service. Makes me ask myself how long will this appalling lunch last? You've splashed gravy on my suit, you've lectured me for acting like a 'big gun'... Is this Russian Sausage thing the end?"

"It most certainly is not the end," Susan flashed. "It's not even the beginning of the end. But it is, I hope, the end of your 'big gunning'."

The Prime Minister opened his mouth, but then stopped, as if struck by a sudden thought, pulled out a pen and a notebook, and scribbled something in it. Susan turned away, her head held high. 

The Russian Sausage, well covered with the gravy, was eaten without further incident.

"Strange dish, though," commented Peter as it was being cleared away. "One of yours?"

"Heavens, no! But I contributed to this next one—more foraging to spin out the rations. I hope they saved us some."

Rebecca was approaching the table, very carefully. In front of her she held a bowl.

"This is our finest... our..." she paused, noticeably, and looked pleadingly at Susan. 

The Prime Minister's keen eyes narrowed, as if he suspected Becca of some obscure form of mockery. 

"Our finest pudding," Susan interposed smoothly. 

"Ah." The Prime Minister regarded the bowl , dubiously. "Looks like a dead jellyfish to me. A _blob_. What is it?"

"It's a blackberry fool, sir," Rebecca managed.

"Well... well... Can't complain, I suppose. Bad for morale." He paused for a moment in thought, and quirked a private smile to himself. "Let's have it then: give us the fool, and I will finish the blob." 

He looked around at them all, expectantly, but found only blank looks in response. This seemed to irk him, somewhat, and he began to eat the dessert in quick, fierce spoonfuls. His expression soon cleared, however, and resolved into a zestful enjoyment, which lasted until he had polished off every scrap of the fool. He pushed back from the table, and stood up.

"Not bad. Not bad at all. Who are the cooks?" Then, not stopping for an answer, "Never mind, never mind. This way to the kitchen?"

Of course this old combatant would have staked out the Hall when he entered, reflected Peter, and of course the practised rhetorician saw the best place to stand, to address his audience—the NAAFI staff and the two Pevensies. The Prime Minister looked quickly around at the little, wondering gathering and began to speak.

"The NAAFI! Some of you were not even born, I suspect, when the NAAFI was born. It is a service for which I have a peculiar affection. Let me tell you why." 

An interesting voice, the High King reflected. Unmelodious, and rather jerky in delivery, rather than fluent, but otherwise... otherwise... curiously reminiscent in style and cadence of a Calormene storyteller. _Let me tell you why..._

"I have seen wars. I have seen wars across four continents, across two centuries. I have seen many wars, and some which should never have been fought. This war is different. This war is not a war for national interests, it is not a war of dynasties or of ambition. This war is something darker, sterner, immeasurably _greater_. This war is a war for civilisation itself."

The storyteller paused, and the High King noted how rapt was the attention of the NAAFI staff. They stood in silence until that low, grinding voice began again. 

"I have seen wars, and I know how vital is the service you render here, providing sustenance, a place that our servicemen and women can call their own, and most of all _comfort._ Comfort. These are days for great deeds and for steadfast resolve, and those who know nothing of war may think that comfort has no place in such times. 

"They are _wrong_ ," the grating burr was rising to a powerful, resonant growl. Peter was reminded of the Great Bear of Shuddering Wood. "They are _wrong._ Com-fort—it is a fine old English word, meaning to give strength, to _fort_ ify, give that _fort_ itude to endure which can make a nation into a _fort_ ress. Men and women of the NAAFI, make no mistake—the work of comfort that you do here is as vital to our war as any steel-pounding factory, or any watcher of the skies, or any front-line fighter. 

"This great work will stand when the powers ranged against us have fallen to ruins, it will stand in memory as long as freedom lasts. We will _never_ forget," and the pace of his delivery slowed as if stretching out to consider vistas of time yet to come, "what is owed to you, and the memories of this work of comfort for our island fortress will give us strength to endure, strength to fight, and strength to step forth, as we _will_ step forth after victory, into the glad new world we are making."

The story-teller's tale was told. Remained only the ritual closing flourishes, the tributes to the _puissant lords_ and to the _ladies whose beauty illuminates_ —but that was how it had been in Tashbaan. Here, Churchill was speaking more plainly, more prosaically.

"It has been my very great pleasure to be here today, to meet you, to enjoy a magnificent lunch, and to gather," his eyes darted, briefly, to Susan, "to gather from you all _some useful words_ , and some lessons worth the learning. I thank you."

His mouth snapped shut. The powerful underjaw was thrust out, he glowered around the room, and left.

The kitchen seemed strangely empty when that monumental presence had gone. The workers stirred and began to turn to the mundane task of the after-lunch cleaning.

"You were right," Peter said, quietly, as he and Susan began stacking dishes into the cavernous sink. 

"Right about...?"

"About being closer to command than it might seem. At least, you certainly managed to make a difference to a commander of this war today. You spoke well, and right to the point. I didn't cover myself in glory, though."

"Nor in gravy," she commented, mildly. "He was an interesting man to meet, and to think how we'd've used him if..."

" _If..._ "

They looked at each other, and then simultaneously, with an instant sympathy born of many long campaigns together, decided to put those thoughts away and concentrate on the present. 

Behind them, Margaret's voice was heard, debating with Rebecca the events of the day. 

"Yes... I suppose so... but I'm sorry it wasn't the Queen, though. I'd've liked to have met a Queen."

Peter, diligently shaking the wire soap-saver under the gushing stream of hot water, carefully did _not_ look at his sister. She reached into the sink, and drew out a hand covered in glistening suds, and flicked them at him.

"Don't you think so, Susie?" came Margaret's lamenting tones again. "Wouldn't it be good to meet a Queen? That would have been really something."

"Yes," Susan agreed. "It would."

-o0o-

**Author's Note:**

> This story is a gift for **Tonzura123** , whose prompt was a challenge I couldn't resist! The prompt was:  
>  _What I want:_ England. One of the Friends of Narnia meets the Prime Minister by accident. Can include life-saving/general showing off in front of said Prime Minister. World War II puns a plus.  
>  _Prompt words/objects/quotes/whatever:_ It was a simple gravy mishap.
> 
> I hope this small sketch fills the bill. :)  
> It is posted with warm thanks to **ruanchunxian** , for kindly looking through the story at very short notice, and for her trouble-spotting, suggestions and encouragement! And also posted with great respect to all who ever worked or ate in a NAAFI, including the man who founded them, **Winston Churchill.**  
>  Some mild liberties have been taken with history and with the great rhetorician's repute, but this is called the Madness round, so I hope these will be allowed to pass.  
> ***
> 
> For those wanting some of the odd scraps of Spare Oom history mentioned in the story:
> 
> [*The Royal Observer Corps ](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Observer_Corps)  
> [ *The Hunter's Bow lip-stick style](http://hair-and-makeup-artist.com/womens-1940s-makeup/)  
> [ *The soap-saver Peter used.](http://www.google.com.vn/imgres?imgurl=http://img0.etsystatic.com/000/0/5295843/il_570xN.177386872.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.etsy.com/listing/57196634/vintage-metal-soap-saver&h=380&w=570&sz=69&tbnid=VS_GnZwlu0W10M:&tbnh=90&tbnw=135&zoom=1&usg=__8XN6KJcwvsOqSGqHWn7T6J-EERs=&docid=fm8LHe-KI9C4KM&sa=X&ei=1yhQUv-tBajYigeu_IDIDg&ved=0CFoQ9QEwCQ)
> 
> *Susan's blackberry fool would have been made, almost certainly, with a dried-egg-and-dried-milk custard, and possibly the wildest fiction on this page is the suggestion that this could possibly have tasted as good as Churchill seemed to think.
> 
> For those interested in how this meshes with Narnian history: this takes place in school holidays after the end of _Prince Caspian_ , and before _The Voyage of the Dawn Treader_.


End file.
